Annie Clark only has to walk on a stage and it’s art. Appearing from the Hammersmith Apollo wings stage left in a raincoat, beneath cartoon clouds overhead, the leftfield Dallas guitar goddess better known as St. Vincent strolled to the microphone, shrugged and walked straight off the other side of the stage. Seconds later she reappeared, stage left again, now in a retro pink playsuit. If we couldn’t believe our eyes, our ears were soon to follow.
Clark has often been lauded as a modern-day Bowie thanks to her chameleonic shifts in style and image, and with good reason. Her new look – think NASCAR calendar girl, 1972 – replaces the sci-fi latex of 2018. And where 2017’s Masseducation album found her comprehensively owning futuristic synth-pop after 10 years spent inching out of the art-rock undergrowth, last year’s Daddy’s Home was a sharp swerve into Seventies funk and hallucinogenic Hair rock. It was inspired by the records her father – who recently finished a nine-year prison stretch for his role in a $43m stock-manipulation scheme – would play her as a child.
